Gray Is The Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lady and Light

Foggy: Fishing and Paddling

"Waiting for Ghoti"  -- if you know that G. B. Shaw respelling of "fish".  

(GH of "rough"; O of "women"; TI of "nation".)

Purely existential.

My view.  

Into the void?

"Marco?" . . . .

. . . "Polo?"

A little further south.  Fog not so strong near the shore . . . the rocky shore.

Trying to photograph water again.
Using the rock and the swell . . . to what effect?

Clay-Gray Friday

Ill at home, waiting out the fever and fret.

Respite in York: Two Views

The ruined tower outside.

The comfort inside.

I'd caught that sore throat on the plane from Frankfurt, and so needed a respite from walking York's stone walls . . . .

Reading Fritz Leiber: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser on the Royal Mile

Fritz Leiber and his The Swords of Lankhmar (1968) proved to be my boon companion during my recent European vacation.  I'd packed a stack of books, carefully chosen, from Lord Byron to Julius Caesar to Steven Erikson for the long flights, train rides, and potential deluges, but a last-minute snatch of Leiber's novel from a stack in my study as I was headed out the door proved the best choice of all.  I read around in Byron for Venice and for the Rhine, read around in Caesar for my Germans and Celts, read around in guide books and historical studies of Hadrian's Wall and such, but a slow passage by passage working through with Fafhrd, the Gray Mouser, and the diabolical rats of Lankhmar was the most satisfying of all.  Leiber's wit, his sense of humor and of rascally honor, his characters and characterization, and the plotting--this one early novel of Newhon, remember--all that, each element, stirred and teased me and pleased me as never before.  This is a novel I've read and enjoyed at least twenty times before, but The Swords of Lankhmar had never truly impressed me until this particular slow reading.

And the reading was slow, for I was busy traveling and sight-seeing, walking and paddling, the cobbled streets and crowded canals of a handful of European cities and towns--Venice, Munich, Bacharach, Edinburgh, York--as well as palaces and castles and pubs.  All of those places fit with the images of Newhon and Lanhkmar, with Leiber's fantasy world and its mix of Hellenistic, Medieval, and Renaissance qualities in manners, clothing, and architecture.  (So easy to picture the two heroes ambling down the back street of a town on the Rhine or even a Scottish close off the Royal Mile.)  As a normally quite fast reader, I was reminded to slow down, to savor the sentences and phrases, to note the particular wittiness of a line or the tactical wisdom of a portion of a plot pattern.  And, since rats are a particular menace in The Swords of Lankhmar, I even welcomed my one actual rat sighting in a canal of Venice, though we did have to back-paddle to make sure the little fellow didn't climb upon any of our kayaks.  (He pulled himself out of the water and into a crack in some foundation.)

I also followed a hint from Ian Rankin, author of the Inspector Rebus novels, and picked up a novel by Scottish author Muriel Spark: The Girls of Slender Means (1963).  A very different sort of book than Leiber's, but equally witty, equally bound by action and circumstance and character, Spark's novel is a valuable find for me.  Leiber works far more broadly, of course, and with entertainment his main goal, while Spark delves more deeply, for all her light touches of manner and speech, and leaves her reader in a literary place beyond expectation; at least, she did that to me, for me.  A wonderful juxtaposition, a fortuitous pairing.

Went Swimming and Took Some Snaps

Today's Profile Pics, Annotated

Today, but so 80s.

Practical #1.

Practical #2.

Earnest -- or goofy?

Focus on the water.

Cold water reveals your (that is, my) age.

Up top again.

June 7th, 2015.

A silly exercise in characterization?
A characteristic exercise in silliness?

Pacific Swimming On A Grey Day

Went swimming off Lindamar Beach, Pacifica CA, with the surfers. Mask & snorkel; fins; wetsuit; squid-lid; camera. Visibility, as you'd expect at a sandy beach, was almost nil in the water.

Four porpoises cruised through the line-ups, though I didn't get any shots myself. Two were within a dozen feet of me, but I didn't have the camera ready in time.

Have to do better next time.

Age is a number, just a number, they say.  Just the passage of time, wayward time.

I say, time to wend my way back into shape.

Rhymes With Orange

My best ceramics instructor once watched me walk into the studio just after the end of summer and in the first week of my new semester and observed, "Your aura is all spiky."  And he was right.

When I looked at this shot, that's what I remembered.

Feeling a little spiky, a little under the weather, now too.

"Gray Is My Favorite Color"

Thomas Gray's "The Fatal Sisters"

THE FATAL SISTERS

Now the storm begins to lower,
(Haste, the loom of Hell prepares!)
Iron-sleet of arrowy shower
Hurtles in the darkened air. 

Glittering lances are the loom,
Where the dusky warp we strain,
Weaving many a soldier's doom,
Orkney's woe and Randver's bane. 

See the grisly texture grow,
('Tis of human entrails made!)
And the weights that play below,
Each a gasping warrior's head. 

Shafts for shuttles, dipped in gore,
Shoot the trembling cords along.
Sword, that once a monarch bore,
Keep the tissue close and strong. 

Mista, black, terrific maid,
Sangrida, and Hilda, see,
Join the wayward work to aid;
'Tis the woof of victory. 

Ere the ruddy sun be set,
Pikes must shiver, javelins sing,
Blade with clattering buckler meet,
Hauberk crash, and helmet ring. 

(Weave the crimson web of war!)
Let us go, and let us fly
Where our friends the conflict share,
Where they triumph, where they die. 

As the paths of fate we tread,
Wading through the ensanguined field,
Gondula and Geira, spread
O'er the youthful king your shield. 

We the reins to slaughter give;
Ours to kill, and ours to spare;
Spite the dangers he shall live.
(Weave the crimson web of war!) 

They whom once the desert beach
Pent within its bleak domain,
Soon their ample sway shall stretch
O'er the plenty of the plain. 

Low the dauntless earl is laid,
Gored with many a gaping wound;
Fate demands a nobler head;
Soon a king shall bite the ground. 

Long his loss shall Eirin weep
Ne'er again his likeness see;
Long her strains in sorrow steep,
Strains of immortality! 

Horror covers all the heath;
Clouds of carnage blot the sun.
Sisters, weave the web of death;
Sisters, cease, the work is done. 

Hail the task, and hail the hands!
Songs of joy and triumph sing!
Joy to the victorious bands
Triumph to the younger king. 

Mortal, thou that hear'st the tale,
Learn the tenor of our song.
Scotland, through each winding vale
Far and wide the notes prolong. 

Sisters, hence with spurs of speed;
Each her thundering falchion wield;
Each bestride her sable steed.
Hurry, hurry to the field! 

--Thomas Gray

Time-Travel: A Mere 34 or So

Or, 2 X 17 versus 3 X 17.

I was probably 34 in this shot, and I looked like a child, don't you think? That's Motley as a kitten! She's 17+ now.

Here, I'm 51 now, and you can read the trail of years in the lines and in the gray and white on my head.  I've gotten quite a bit of sun here too, but that's all good, a sign of summer and outdoor activities.  Slather, slather, with the sunscreen.  (6 feet tall and 170 pounds, so that's not so bad; I've dropped 19 pounds since December 30th.  And, I could be in a bit better muscular shape, but that's what summer's for too.)

Just keeping track.

Book review or preview or tempting taste to be posted manana.